Reader question - names in historical fiction set in foreign country

TheCuriousOne

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I don't read a lot of historical fiction, so I'm trying to find out what's the usual way of doing things from people who are more qualified than I am :)

I'll use an example.

Story is set in England, but is written in the French language. The characters are English, and the scene takes place at the King's court. OK, I'm not sure they'd speak to the king by using his first name, but let's say they do for the sake of it.

Narration in French speaks of "Jacques", referring to King James. But then, the name, when coming up in oral speech between English characters, is also "Jacques". As in "Voulez-vous du vin, Jacques ?" (Would you like some wine, Jacques?) And I find this bugs me a lot.

Am I just being silly about this? As I said, I don't read a lot of historical fiction, and it's even less often when I read historical fiction set in countries that don't use the same language as the writer. How are you writers approaching this (if you do)?

Thanks!
 

TellMeAStory

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I don't read a lot of historical fiction, so I'm trying to find out what's the usual way of doing things from people who are more qualified than I am :)

I'll use an example.

Story is set in England, but is written in the French language. The characters are English, and the scene takes place at the King's court. OK, I'm not sure they'd speak to the king by using his first name, but let's say they do for the sake of it.

Narration in French speaks of "Jacques", referring to King James. But then, the name, when coming up in oral speech between English characters, is also "Jacques". As in "Voulez-vous du vin, Jacques ?" (Would you like some wine, Jacques?) And I find this bugs me a lot.

Am I just being silly about this? As I said, I don't read a lot of historical fiction, and it's even less often when I read historical fiction set in countries that don't use the same language as the writer. How are you writers approaching this (if you do)?

Thanks!

Not entirely sure I understand your question, but if your English-speaking characters are trying to communicate with their French-speaking king, might they not mispronounce it somehow? Something like "Djak?"
 

Tocotin

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Do you mean using foreign versions of English names, and vice versa, when the book is written in a foreign language? It doesn't bother me in the slightest. After all, a lot of European names share Hebrew/Greek/Latin etc. roots, so I don't see why they couldn't be adjusted according to the needs of the writer.
 

benbenberi

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I believe the convention is to use the same name to refer to a person in both narrative & dialog unless there's a particular reason not to. In your hypothetical French scenario, the dialog of characters who (within their own context) are presumably speaking in English with each other has been translated into French for the convenience of readers -- why should the names they include in their speech not be included in the translation? Similarly, if you were writing a historical novel in English about the French king who is known as Françcois (Ier), you are likely to call him Francis in the narrative, and when the characters are talking to each other they are likely to call him Francis too. It would be much more jarring IMO if the narrative uses the translation and dialog does not (unless in your English-language novel you don't translate the dialog of the French-speaking characters but keep it in French, in which cases you've got a totally different problem in play).

This, btw, is not just a question for historical fiction, but applies to all fiction where the language of the setting & characters is different from the language of the text.
 

angeliz2k

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Well, if you take the opposite, and it were an English novel set in France, I would expect the names to be their proper French names--King Louis or King Henri, not King Lewis or King Henry. So I would kind of expect the same thing of a French novel referring to English characters. I would expect "Roi James" or "King James". Same would go, for me, with characters who weren't real people--I wouldn't refer to a French character as John but as Jean. I would do this in dialogue and exposition.
 

TheCuriousOne

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So sorry, I do realise my whole scenario thing was confusing. Yes, to make things clearer, I'm wondering if it would be okay to have English characters in an English setting referred to by their French equivalent names just because the novel is written in French.

I see benbenberi's point about having to switch from one to the other if the author decided to use the equivalent in narration, but keep the original, local name in speech. And I can understand that it might be easier for the reader to use the name that a historical figure is known as in their own language...

I guess it's just a preference thing. Like angeliz2k, I prefer for characters to have their local names. If I'm reading about King James, even in a novel in French, I'm not sure I'd like him to be referred to as "Jacques" - it'd take me away from the scene. But that's just me ;)

On another note, if that novel mixed typically English names and French equivalent names, like you have "Buster" and "Hope" and "Wyatt" in the scene, but you'd also have a "Jacques" and a "Jean" because the novel is written in French... would this work, or would this distract you from the scene?

Thank you all for your help and opinions :)
 

benbenberi

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Like angeliz2k, I prefer for characters to have their local names. If I'm reading about King James, even in a novel in French, I'm not sure I'd like him to be referred to as "Jacques" - it'd take me away from the scene. But that's just me ;)

On another note, if that novel mixed typically English names and French equivalent names, like you have "Buster" and "Hope" and "Wyatt" in the scene, but you'd also have a "Jacques" and a "Jean" because the novel is written in French... would this work, or would this distract you from the scene?

Having read my fair share of English-language historical fiction with all kinds of settings, and a fair amount of French-language hist-fic both in French & in translation, I would say that the only really distracting thing about names is to have the same person referred to by both a native-language and a translated version of their name in the same text, unless there's a very good reason for doing so presented in the text (e.g. a French character insists on using the French name while everyone else including the narrator is using the English, or vice versa). Consistency from the reader's perspective is more important to me than linguistic purity or originalism.

That said, if a character has a name whose English translation is familiar to readers but whose native-language name might not be -- frex. Darius vs Dārayavahush -- I would strongly favor using the English form throughout if you want readers to recognize who the character is meant to be.